MALIBU—Malibu officials and neighboring cities held a public workshop on September 9 to discuss ways to coordinate preparedness and mitigation issues in the event of a disaster.

Brad Davis, Emergency Services Coordinator for Malibu, told Canyon News the Mitigation Plan describes the actions that a city can take to reduce the risk or impact of disasters happening and is required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“We have partnered with four other cities in the local area and rather than just doing our own, we’ve gone in with these four other cities in the council of governments locally and hired a contractor to write a plan for all four of our jurisdictions,” Davis said. “What happens in one jurisdiction, like Calabasas, will certainly have an effect on us here in Malibu and vice versa," he added.

Davis said the community workshop, which was held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Calabasas Founders Hall, went over completely smoothly.

“The intention of that [workshop] was to let people know what the plan is, that we’re working on it and see if there were any questions,” Davis said. “There weren’t really any questions though. [We were] just talking about the plan and describing it to the people that were there," he added.

Although the plan has been submitted to FEMA for approval, the public can view the plan on any of the city websites for Malibu, Calabasas, Agoura Hills, Hidden Hills or Westlake Village.

The Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan allows the cities, which experience similar hazards, to combine efforts, identify common threats and establish a regional mitigation strategy to create mutual participation and a more effective use of resources, according to the text of the plan.

The plan meets the requirements of the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 and allows the Las Virgenes-Malibu Council of Governments to be “eligible for federal mitigation funding after disasters and to apply for mitigation grants before disasters strike.”

“It’s just one of those required plans that every jurisdiction has to submit to FEMA in order to be compliant with the federal regulations,” Davis said.